Arrival
2017
The werewolf reeks of booze. He’s been with me since the start of the plane ride and claims he used to work as a roadie for the band Cradle of Filth.
“A bottle of Burmese whisky is only $3… Quality batches too… Washes out the parasites and perfectly pairs with tea leaf salads…” says the werewolf, and I crane my neck in bemusement.
The werewolf goes on to tell me he’s been teaching in Myanmar, at a temple, for two years, teaching English to young monks.
“Young monks?” I inquire, surprise coloring my voice. When I think of monks, I think of elderly Asian men with shaved heads… graybeards atop misty mountains… dudes doing Kung Fu in exotic jungle temples and lone silent sinewy figures meditating in the emerald glow of bamboo forests…
Apparently not, though, as the werewolf tells me that impoverished families in Myanmar will sometimes send a child to become a monk, to live in the monastery.
It’s hard for me to picture 5-year-old kids as monks, but I guess it’s a thing.
At the airport, the werewolf accompanies me through a chrome corridor, its walls blasting neon, like Christmas trees. We then proceed to the immigration controls.
Jutting his furry chin toward the sad-eyed agents seated behind the immigration counter, their faces twisted in a type of bored contempt, the werewolf whispers in my ear, his breath hot and wet and stinkin’ of whisky, “These immigration officers, border guards, customs agents… I wonder what they think of tourists, people who can fly around the world, take vacations… Just look at them having to serve us… Like, here they are, probably living in poverty… And here the tourists are, probably packing more in spare change and small bills than that customs agent earns in a month… Sort of explains a certain degree of surliness…”
I wonder what the customs agents will think of the werewolf, but then I size up the nearby knots of UK/Aussie backpackers, the unshaven, hairy lot, one covered in so many tattoos that barely a speck of his skin shows… And I assume the werewolf will fit right in amongst the Western tourists.
The werewolf and I are launched by psychosomatic slingshot into the city. Then we walk all over Rangoon. We follow the flags. We follow the purple sky and its mango streaks of sunset. We pass progress and songs of the past and we pause our questions, our isms, and we posit nothing.
The werewolf really does fit right in, in Rangoon. He chews betel nuts like a local, smiles wickedly with his mossy fangs, and skillfully spits big blotchy blood-red gobs of phlegm at the sidewalk.
The sidewalks are a hot mess, too, even without the spit. Dangerous to boot. Thankfully, the werewolf is my guiding light, helps me avert the ordeal of slipping into an open sewer.
Tilting his hairy face and locking eyes with me, the werewolf explains, deadpan, “The sidewalks are simply thin planks of concrete, lids, really, atop open sewers. Parts of the planks have crumbled due to wear, tear, neglect, so it’s best to walk on the edge of the street.”
Looking ahead, I recognize how right he is, pedestrians walking single file, on the side of the road; bustling traffic, chaotic bursts of buses, cars, motorbikes, various three-wheeled vehicles whizzing by; however, the sidewalks sit empty, save for the holes.
The werewolf sighs, then cuts a trombone honk of a fart, which he declines to acknowledge, and continues, “Careful at night. Myanmar sells its electricity to China, rations it domestically. Frequent power-cuts leave these streets pitch-black, prone to peril…”
I can imagine how horrible it’d be to fall into an open sewer in Rangoon, that sewer water probably so full of betel nut spit that it’d burn me alive like lava.
I’d never worried about trap doors opening into sewers as I walk down the sidewalk, but I guess it’s a thing.
I stay in a cheap hotel near the temple. The werewolf bunks with me, sleeps on the balcony so he can throw shade at the moon.
Before he retires for the evening, the werewolf asks, rhetorically, “Why is it so many Europeans return to the lands they once colonized? The French in Laos, Vietnam? Brits in Burma? Dutch in Sri Lanka?”
Into the small hours of night, I sit and lie atop the hard, thin mattress, spread out on the single bed, and read Toni Morrison, sip the werewolf’s whisky, and watch the werewolf do drunk yoga on the balcony, catching mosquitoes with his tongue.
